SINGULAR AFFILIATIONS LEAD TO SECTARIAN VIOLENCE.
By Syed Qamar Hasan.
This litany about “Identity Crisis” does not hold weight and stick on us. This term was labeled on us by the west after 9/11. US and Western Neo-cons, intellectuals, journalists and our so called progressive Muslim intellectuals , who cropped up in tonnes exploited the post-9/11 situation and pasted it on to us.
It is the west that is facing Identity crisis. Having lost its mooring in religion and religiosity to damning materialism, the west is now nothing but geography.
My name is my identity, that leads to another rich and permanent identity, that of Islam (again there are two identities .A. practicing Muslim or B.Shadah Muslim). I have another identity, my Indianness. Then there is a third identity, that’s my professional identity as a journalist.Then fourth, as a husband, then, fifth as a father.
The status I have in society and neighborhood is another identity. The car I drive, the clothes I wear, the club I go to, the school my children attend are all identities.
Then on collective level I have political, social cultural identity. Within our social strata, there are variants those of an Aligarian, Jaamian, Nadvian, Deo Bandi, Ahl-Hadith, Tablighi, Barelvi ,etc, etc.
All these multiple identities are part of us, whether we like it or not these myriad identities compete simultaneously for recognition.
Our problem is not of identity crisis, but of priorities. We have a crisis in prioritizing and programming our identities to their relative importance. We are unable to decide upon placing them in order of preference to fit in the right context in making space for ourselves in India and elsewhere. “No man is an island entire of itself.”
In chalking out a programme to categorise the multiple identities we have as members of global society, our permanent “flagship” identity, Islam is insulated against any change or harm.
This is a supreme universal identity of ours.( Oh man kind we have created………… made into tribes and clans to know each other………(49-13.Al Qoran). And the zenith of this identity is again split into , “ The most honourable of you with Allah is the one with ATaqha( fear of Allah) 49-13.
If am going to watch a cricket match between India and Pakistan. I have to pocket my Islamic identity and put on my Indian identity and cheer my home team. Attending Jan 26th and Aug 15th, it is my Indian identity that stands out. Going to a mosque or religious ritual it is my Islamic identity that comes first. Attending a board meeting and walking out to the call of the muazzen is for me to decide and choose which of the identity comes first.
Babri Masjid cannot be and is not my identity. It is one of the symbols of my Islamic identity.My identity cannot be prisoner to a brick and mortar structure it is more universal, as the poet says, HAZARRON BAN GAI KABEY JABEEN HUM NE JAHAN RAKH DI. Or to quote another charming analogy ,“I pass by these walls, the walls of Laila. And I kiss this wall and that wall. It’s not love of these walls, that has taken my heart. But the one who dwells within these walls.”
Finally it is we who have to wit the relative importance attached to respective identities in solving conflicts and crisis.
Social scientist have warned Singular Affiliations, in plural societies lead to social tensions and sectarian violence.
Syed Qamar Hasan.
Is former Abu Dhabi Bureau Chief of Khaleej Times and
Emirates Today.